President Surangel Whipps Jr., including four other Micronesian presidents, are endorsing Nauru’s candidacy for Secretary General in 2024.
The leaders also requested a visit by U.S. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the Pacific sometime in the near future.
In the recently concluded Micronesian Presidents’ Summit this week, the leaders decided to support the candidate of Nauru for the SG.
In last year’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Fiji, it was decided that the next Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) in 2024 will be from Micronesia.
FSM President David Panuelo, now the chair of the MOS and hosted this week’s meeting, said the five leaders are united.
“The MPS has five members, and we had four items of elemental importance to take care of—that is, who gets what, and who hosts what. As Chair of the MPS and as an advocate for Pacific unity, I felt that it was, in part, the FSM’s responsibility to ensure that our collective Micronesian subregion emerges stronger together—for our own sake, as well as the sake of the Pacific at large. As much as our citizens may hear talk of the FSM aligning itself with this major power or that major power in international media reports and political strategy papers, the reality is that, as Pacific Islanders, we stand with the Pacific before we stand with anyone else—and, as Micronesians, we seek consensus and solidarity amongst ourselves first and foremost.”